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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Review: Spring Training Day 2 and Combined Session Times

Verizon Indycar Spring Training came to a close with the conclusion of today's testing. Guess what that means?! Next thing on the schedule is practice for the first race at St. Petersburg! Woot woot!

Today was nothing surprising. Will Power once again led the field, followed very closely by darkhorse Justin Wilson, defending champion Scott Dixon, veteran Takuma Sato, and "new" Ganassi driver Ryan Briscoe.

Eyes were once again fixed on Juan Pablo Montoya. Yesterday, he finished the session an outstanding P2. Today, he showed pace again, finishing a less glamorous P9. Also receiving a lot of attention is Tony Kanaan in the #10 Chip Ganassi car that was formerly driven by Dario Franchitti. While TK did nothing impressive in the past two days, he a) didn't have a poor performance and b) doesn't have to prove himself in preseason testing. I think we all know what he can do.

Rookie Jack Hawksworth of Bryan Herta Autosport began to strut his stuff, showing quick pace on his way to a P12 effort. Other rookies also improved from yesterday, with Carlos Munoz finishing P16 and Mikhail Aleshin finishing P20.

It seemed to be a struggle-bus kind of day for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Despite some decent pace yesterday, both cars driven by Graham Rahal and Oriol Servia were off of the leaders times. At one points, they occupied the last two spots on the sheet. Graham did end up shaving a few tenths of a second to finish the session P19, while Oriol ended up dead last in P22.

TBA is still nowhere to be found. Your move Dale Coyne.

Only a couple incidents worth mentioning: Ryan Briscoe's day was cut 30 minutes short with an issue, Mikhail Aleshin required a tow in after stopping on course, Oriol Servia had an off which caused a red flag, and one other red flag that was thrown for debris. No crashes or damage to speak of today.

Here are the times and laps completed from session two of Spring Training:

Day
2

Pos

Driver

Time

Laps

1

Will Power

1:07.060

62

2

Justin Wilson

1:07.064

51

3

Scott Dixon

1:07.079

59

4

Takuma Sato

1:07.331

57

5

Ryan Briscoe

1:07.375

48

6

Helio Castroneves

1:07.400

54

7

Ryan Hunter-Reay

1:07.449

56

8

James Hinchcliffe

1:07.463

60

9

Juan Pablo Montoya

1:07.476

61

10

Simon Pagenaud

1:07.523

72

11

Tony Kanaan

1:07.612

59

12

Jack Hawksworth

1:07.654

64

13

Charlie Kimball

1:07.706

73

14

Sebastien Bourdais

1:07.711

67

15

Marco Andretti

1:07.794

71

16

Carlos Munoz

1:07.943

79

17

Sebastian Saavedra

1:07.973

50

18

Josef Newgarden

1:08.075

47

19

Graham Rahal

1:08.083

62

20

Mikhail Aleshin

1:08.197

15

21

Mike Conway

1:08.216

70

22

Oriol Servia

1:08.394

51

Here are the combined times from session one and two, with the driver's best time listed next to their name, what session they completed that lap in, and the total laps they ran (Spoiler: Everyone set their fastest time in session two...):